Assi Natural Market To Replace Stein Mart in Irvine

Last week Anne Marie told us that the Mitsuwa was opening its second OC store in Irvine. Now comes news that Irvine is going to get a lot more where that came from: that is to say, another Asian supermarket is coming to town. This time, it's Korean.

Assi, which has a market in LA's Koreatown, will open on the site currently occupied by Stein Mart at Woodbridge Village Center at 4730 Barranca Parkway.

The new store will be called Assi Natural Market.

When Assi arrives (let's hope that the last letter never gives out on the signage), it will be the third Korean supermarket in the Irvine area (if you're not counting Freshia, which is technically in Tustin), including H-Mart and Zion Market, where you can get marinated Korean BBQ meats, kimchi, et cetera.

The slated store is anticipated to debut sometime in fall of 2012. Before that Stein Mart will move to the Irvine side of The Marketplace.

Edwin Goei was born on the island of Java, grew up in La Habra, studied in Irvine, and eats everywhere. Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, he went by the alias "elmomonster" on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.